Baseball and softball gloves are conventionally made from leather and, as a result, are expensive and somewhat limited in the range of the variability of their functional and aesthetic design, manufacture and use. A typical ball glove has five thick, leather finger tubes extending outwardly from a flat, padded palm region. Four leather finger tubes are laced together, and a web connects a thumb finger tube to the other four finger tubes.
Leather ball gloves need what is known as a "break-in period" before they are optimally suited for use. The break-in period is the time during which the stiffness of the new leather glove is reduced by repeatedly flexing and chemically treating the glove to soften the leather, define lines of flexure and improve the fit and performance for the owner of the glove. The requirement of a leather glove to be broken in not only delays the use of a new leather glove, but also demonstrates that if the ball glove changes from the time it is new until the time it is broken in, then the ball glove is constantly changing during use, even after it is broken in. This constant variation of the glove is undesirable, since most athletes want their equipment to remain consistent in its performance so the athletes can depend upon its consistency, and concentrate on varying and improving their performance in order to attain optimum overall results.
The thickness of the leather required to make the glove structurally suitable inhibits any passages of air to the hand of the user. Any small air passages formed in the thick leather will allow little air to be passed to the user's hand by virtue of the long tunnel the air must traverse to contact the hand.
The typical leather glove is made by connecting a large number of leather pieces into an arranged shape. The pieces of leather must each be cut out or formed into a shape, sewn and laced together, and treated to preserve the leather. A large number of manufacturing steps are required to make a conventional leather ball glove, making the expense high. Variations in the qualities of leather introduce a large possibility for flaws in the finished glove.
The damage that occurs when leather becomes wet from water and later dries out is well known and is another problem with conventional leather ball gloves, especially those with inferior leather. The weight and physical structure necessary for forming a leather ball glove that will not only hold itself rigid under its own weight, but will also maintain its general overall shape upon impact of a ball being caught, also add to the disadvantages of leather ball gloves.
Another problem with conventional leather ball gloves is the difficulty of conforming the ball glove to any shape other than its open or closed shape. For example, when fielding a ball rolling on the ground, a player opens the leather glove and presses the finger tip end of the glove against the ground to give the ball a "ramp" from the ground up into the glove. Most conventional ball gloves provide only a small portion of the finger tip end of the glove along which the glove forms a ramp upon being pressed to the ground. Additionally, the thickness of the finger tubes provides an abrupt bump for the ball when rolling into contact with and onto the "ramp" the glove forms.
Attempts have been made to alleviate some of the problems of conventional leather ball gloves. Miner, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,896,376, uses shaped sheets of plastic which are sewn and riveted together to form a ball glove. The ball glove is weather proof, but the large number of manufacturing steps involved would require Miner's ball glove to be as expensive and as complex as a conventional leather ball glove.
Klimezky, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,279,681, describes a method called slush molding that is used to make a leather look-alike ball glove. This method includes pouring a liquid or powdered plastic into a heated mold and solidifying an outer shell. The liquid or powder that is not solidified is dumped and the shell is removed from the mold. As a second step, the finger holes are defined by forming spaced, linear welds that separate hollow cavities into which fingers are inserted by the user.
Injection molding involves pouring or forcing liquid into a cavity and then allowing the liquid to assume the shape of the cavity and solidify. Injection molding is well known, and has been used to form the soft plastic parts of gas masks and swim fins. Swim fins often have multiple plastics of different physical properties, such as hardness, molded together in a series of steps or molded separately and later assembled. However, baseball gloves have never been designed to utilize and accommodate plastic material characteristics and injection molding techniques. Instead, baseball gloves are all modelled after the conventional leather ball glove and their manufacturing methods.
The method of manufacturing Klimezky's ball glove is simpler than that used to manufacture conventional leather ball gloves and is also simpler than that used to manufacture Miner's ball glove. Additionally, Klimezky's ball glove would be weather proof if constructed of correctly selected materials. However, Klimezky emphasizes that it is of primary importance that his ball glove have very similar appearance to a leather ball glove. Klimezky also mentions that his glove is as good as a leather glove. The utility of a leather glove is in need of improvement, as discussed above and below.
One of the more prominent disadvantages of conventional leather ball gloves, and Klimezky and Miner's ball gloves, is that once the gloves are manufactured, there is little opportunity provided for variations in the size and shape of the hand of the person using the glove. Typically, a glove which is large can only be used by someone having a large hand, particularly long fingers. Klimezky's glove has a cavity in it into which a person's hand is inserted. If a small person wants to purchase a large glove made by Klimezky's method, the small person must insert his hand into the cavity and operate the glove regardless of the shape and size of his hand, with no provision for adjustment. Leather gloves have finger straps which can be loosened or tightened slightly, but the conventional leather glove still has finger tubes that are not variable in depth or diameter. Also, if an owner of a glove "breaks in" a leather glove, it is usually uncomfortable for a second person to use the glove, due to the leather having conformed to the owner's hand and the owner's flexure regions.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved ball glove that can be simply and inexpensively manufactured, is weather proof and consistent in its performance, and can be varied extensively after manufacture to fit various hand shapes and sizes. The ball glove should allow for design variability to allow it to be tailored before and after manufacture to the variations in hands and in fielding needs at different baseball or softball positions.